How myeloma has rewritten the language of our home

The kitchen counter used to mean Sunday mornings.

I would stand there slicing up tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables. And as the sharp smell rose, my mum would be humming old songs behind me.

These days, that same counter holds a plastic tray for syringes, a neat line of pill bottles, and the small notebook where I track every dose. The onions, tomatoes, and vegetables are gone. The humming is quieter. Even the floor speaks differently now.

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My bare feet once moved freely from room to room. These days, my feet have learned new paths. I step carefully around the oxygen tubing that meanders across the hallway like a river that is thin and gray. The soft creak of the fourth floorboard still alerts me when my mum is trying to get up on her own. Once I hear it, my heart tightens before I even reach her door.

The couch in the living room carries its own memory now.

It used to be the place where we would sit and watch films together. We loved comedies back then, and I still remember how we would laugh until our sides hurt. These days, the cushions hold the shape of her body after long afternoons of rest. I catch the faint scent of the antiseptic wipes I use to clean the area around her. Sometimes, after she has fallen asleep, I’ll sit down in the same spot and run my hand over the fabric, feeling the small indent where she lay. To me, it feels as if the house itself is holding her when I cannot.

Doorways have equally changed.

I used to walk through them without thinking. Now every doorway is a vote, a deliberate choice, a decision I must carefully consider. Can she make it without using the walker? Should I offer my arm or let her try by herself? The wooden frames have become silent judges of how much strength remains in her legs.

I never expected our home to learn a new language so quickly. It reminds me of how we had to learn a new vocabulary.

In fact, I thought I was the only one who had to learn and unlearn several things when my mum was diagnosed with myeloma.

I never expected that our home, the same house we’ve lived in all these years, would learn how to adapt with the changes that are bound to happen with the arrival of a rare cancer.

Still, it has. The rooms remember the old life and the new one at the same time. On some evenings, as I stand in the quiet hallway and listen, I am sure I can hear the house.

I can hear the house as it whispers back in the small sounds only we now know. And I realize a fact: This is still our home. It has simply learned how to speak the language of two people who are still here, still together, still finding their way.

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